oneer who goes into the forest to carve out a
home for himself and his children? How much more noble is such
courage, how infinitely superior is such a warfare, one which mows
down forest trees instead of men, which creates green pastures, broad
meadows, and fields of waving grain, instead of smouldering cities,
and desolated homes! How much more pleasant is the sound of the
woodman's axe, than that of the booming cannon! How much more cheerful
the smoke that goes up from the burning fallow, than that which hangs
in darkness over the desolation of the battle field, beneath which lie
the dead in their stillness, and the wounded in their agony! But I am
losing sight of the bear."

"Exactly so," said the Doctor; "and we have not as yet had the
pleasure of making his acquaintance. Suppose you give us an
introduction to the gentleman."

"These interruptions are entirely out of order," gravely remarked
Smith; "they must not be repeated. The counsel will proceed."

"Well," resumed Spalding, bowing deferentially to the court, "one of
these settlers started one day across the woods to visit his brother.
There were few roads in those times, and these were laid out without
much reference to distance; they went winding and crooking every way
to avoid this hill, or that creek, or water course, or any other
impediment which nature may have thrown in the way, and a blind
footpath, or a line of marked trees, was more commonly travelled from
one forest house to another. The forester was tramping cheerfully
along, thinking doubtless of the good time coming, when his farm would
be shorn of all its old woods, when flocks and herds would be grazing
in luxurious pastures, tall grain waving in fields, the summer grass
clothing in richness meadows reclaimed by his labor from the
wilderness, and he should be at ease among his children. First
settlers of a new country think of these things, and it is because
they think of them, that their hearts are strong and buoyant with
hope. They live in the future, enduring the darkness and privation of
the present, in their faith in the brightness of the years to come.
Thus they wait in patience for, while they command success, and the
end of their toil is an old age of competence, and in the closing
years of life, quiet and repose. Well, he was enjoying these pleasant
visions when he saw, some thirty rods ahead of him, a huge bear, with
her cubs, 'travelling his way,' as the saying is, in other words